We went to the Yucatán peninsula for a week at the end of February. In preparation, I encouraged Joe to practice his Spanish whenever he got a chance—and as it happened, a new girl joined his class a few weeks before our trip, fresh from Mexico.

On her first day, he went up to her, smiled, and said, "¡Hola! ¿Como estas?"

"Shut up," she said.

Afterwords, Maribel turned out to be a very sweet little girl, so I'm perfectly willing to believe that either Joe misunderstood her response, or she misunderstood his Spanish. Still, it put something of a damper on his enthusiasm for Mexico, at least until we got there and he had a fabulous time. And he did, in fact, chat with pretty much everyone we met, in both English and Spanish.